Supporters of the #FixFundraising campaign

“It is very frustrating, that as a registered charity that has approvals/permits from REO, DLGR etc, we have to comply with rules, regulations and restrictions. Yet any ‘Tom, Dick or Harry’ can raise funds on social media or ‘Go Fund Me’ and there is no apparent control as to how the money should be used or acknowledged, leaving the general public at the mercy of the people making these appeals – mostly these are ‘good’ people, but there are far too many unscrupulous ones out there. Who knows where or how that money is used?”

— (Volunteer run. Medium charity, >250K but <1M. Nil paid staff)

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“Currently, our charity serves several states and with all non paid volunteers it is extremely complex trying to keep up with legislation and regulations on requesting donations from members and the public. One system nationally would make it less time consuming and easier to manage this segment of our charity.”

— (Volunteer-run. Nil paid staff. Small charity <250K) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“We are a small organisation, with 1.8 staff. We report to CAV in Victoria. Until recently, reporting and renewal requirements were very onerous, requiring considerable time for staff and our volunteer board to complete. The recent change to reporting through the ACNC should alleviate this burden. However, we are planning to fundraise in WA and NSW. The application requirements differ and are onerous. Given we are a registered charity which is audited and provides an Annual Information Statement to the ACNC every year with financial statements attached, the requirement to report fundraising separately across different jurisdictions seems unnecessary and creates a significant administrative/cost burden. Every time there is a change to our board or organisational details, we already report to the ACNC, Register of Cultural Organisations, ABR and CAV. To add further regulators is a deterrent to compliance and adds to costs. I strongly support a nationally consistent fundraising scheme.”

— (Medium charity, >250K but <1M.  Less than 5 paid staff) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“We are a small charity with members in every state, we do our best to comply but it’s very hard. At times very generous people request to donate from states we are not registered in and have the potential to inadvertently cause an issue for us. Thank you for your help.”

— (Volunteer-run.  Nil paid staff.  Small charity <250K) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“I started a new charity last year and honestly, I was amazing at how archaic, time consuming and painful it has been to comply with the relevant fundraising laws. Each state has an entirely different set of laws, application processes and compliance requirements, and worse the laws themselves are archaic and not based on the reality of modern online fundraising practices. Most of the laws seem designed to regulate tin-can collections from circa 1984 and haven’t been modernised since. It has been a hugely expensive experience for our charity – I estimate that it took me about three weeks of full-time work to get my head around it all and ensure our compliance. It’s just crazy, it presents such a massive and unnecessary red tape barrier to starting or running a charity. I understand that this needs to be regulated, but please, not like this!”

— (Small charity <250K. Less than 5 staff.) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“Having a one-stop-shop for registration would save so much time and energy and would result in more organisations abiding by the rules. Having so many different rules for different states leaves too many opportunities for mistakes/noncompliance. Thank you for taking this on.”

— (Volunteer-run. Nil paid staff. Small charity <250K)

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“Our charity received advice 5 years ago that harmonisation and federalisation of fundraising rules and registrations would occur, so haven’t registered. Experience with another charity was that the registration and compliance was not a useful exercise. Adding a fundraising compliance section to the AIS with ACNC would be welcomed.”

— (Large charity >1m. Less than 5 staff)

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“100% volunteer founded and led. We are domestic violence survivors, we work full time and run the charity after hours and on weekends. Some states it is clear what to do, others it is not clear. Some say it is not necessary to apply, though the online fundraising platforms still need a charity code for that state. So confusing about what to do. All we want to do is the right thing and support survivors and those who support us, easily know that we comply. Please bring in one approach. thank you.”

— (Volunteer-run. Nil paid staff. Small charity <250K) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“We created a charity with a new idea on how to match the short term housing needs of those experiencing unsafe situations with unused hotel rooms, but have been unable to progress as it is not possible for a charity of our size to fundraise with the differing rules in each state. With modern methods of fundraising not practically allowing geofenced fundraising, we are unable to fundraise at all and are frozen. This needs to be resolved.”

— (Volunteer-run. Nil paid staff. Small charity <250K) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“I couldn’t say that the regulations particularly interfere with our fundraising, because we pay them no mind, knowing that there will be no enforcement. It’s simply irritating and nigglingly pointless.”

— (Small charity <250K. Less than 5 staff.) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“Even though we have a presence in all states, we have been constrained in fundraising in all states, because of the individual states fundraising requirements – and the time taken to apply and reapply.”

— (Small charity <250K. Less than 5 staff.) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“We understand that we are probably supposed to register with almost every state and territory as a fundraiser, but we mainly only collect from people already on our mailing list, and it seems onerous to register so many times when we are already accountable with ASIC. So we’ve only registered in the state in which we operate, hoping that legislation will catch up to reality.”

— (Large charity >1m, employing 11-100 staff) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“I tried to go online to get the information I needed and I found it a hodgepodge of information. The information I had was outdated, and I ended up having to speak to someone at Fair Trading to get the answers I needed. It took a long time and was frustrating and time-consuming. It should not be so difficult.”

— (Large charity >1m, employing 11-100 staff) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“It has been great that VIC have moved to deemed registration if you are a charity with the ACNC. This has significantly reduced fundraising regulation burden both for registration and ongoing compliance. In previous organisations, the need to register and comply in each state and territory was a significant burden and waste of charitable funds.”

— (Large charity >1m, employing 11-100 staff) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“We have been in the process of applying for a QLD license for many months and the red tape is horrendous. Very pleased to see that VIC has moved to accepting ACNC updates instead of separate reporting. We need to make it much easier for charities to do business.”

— (Large charity >1m, employing 11-100 staff) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“It is simply too complicated, it is actually almost impossible to know that you comply in every way. It just simply is a minefield. It is a barrier to fundraising and a drain on resources, for no final benefit to the regulatory environment or in protecting consumers from poor behaviour by charities.”

— (Medium charity, >250K but <1M. Less than 5 paid staff)

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“Last year we looked at applying for fundraising licences across Australia, the information requirements for the States differed dramatically and there was a lot of requirements particularly needed from Board members. One staff member spent several weeks reviewing the applications, in the end, it was decided not to go ahead with the project.”

— (Large charity >1m, employing 11-100 staff) 

Experience shared via May 2021 Charities Crisis Cabinet Fundraising Survey

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“As a new Neighbourhood House we are looking at fundraising to help grow the House but trying to figure out if we need to register for this or that or are we ok just to run an event has taken hours of reading. All of the information is complicated and contradictory.”

— Lanne, Marley St Community Hub

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“Because we are doing online marketing and fundraising we need to obtain licences around Australia. We only have one employee and this is a waste of time, effort and precious money!”

—  Nell, The Cova Project

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“We are brand new and just starting to ‘look out over the minefield’.”

— Chris, Busy Bees ETC

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“Several hours spent applying for Qld charity status with a regulated process that is hopelessly out of date plus paying $460 for an ad in the Courier Mail – not a great use of scarce funds which could have been much better used for our pilot program to provide postvention counselling & support to families impacted by suicide. As a practising accountant with 30+ years experience, the charity/fundraising compliance process would have to be one of the worst red tape experiences I’ve encountered. Well done on the work you are doing to have the process streamlined!”

— Paul, Treasurer, Whitsunday Suicide Prevention Network

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“We recently sought to re-register for 3 years through CAV in Victoria. What a nightmare of red tape . Required all Board members to submit to crim records, required details in including addresses for all members, and they wanted financials for calendar years even tho we are audited against financial years. We we asked why they can’t rely on financials we regularly submit to them (as incorporated body) and to ACNC , to no avail & was pointed out that ACNC is Federal. ACNC should be enough ! There were many delays and difficulty reaching a human to talk to.”

— Name withheld

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“We are a new volunteer NFP mental health consumer support group, please make it uniform and simpler for “ordinary people” to carry out fund raising. We are doing our best to raise our own funds without tax payer support, hence it is only fair to stream line the laws and rules for fund raising across our wonderful country”

— Name withheld

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“Our charity has operations based in one capital city. Our senior executive team has recently enquired whether we could put up a fundraising page on our website allowing the public to make a tax deductible donation. As an organisation we have not previously promoted our DGR status as a means of generating donations. Our organisation: has a skills-based non-executive board; is regulated by multiple government departments and bodies; is audited by one of the ‘big four’ audit firms; and takes its legal and regulatory compliance obligations seriously.

As we started to explore the regulatory impact of adding a donations page to our website it became clear that doing so could be seen as an invitation to the public in each Australian state and territory to make a donation. The result of which means we may need to apply for a licence or authorisation under the various fundraising regimes in each of the 6 states and the ACT. It quickly became clear that each state’s requirements and processes are very different and that it would be a complex and time consuming exercise to investigate the requirements, identify the ongoing compliance obligations and set about making the various applications in each jurisdiction. To date (and without starting a single application) this has taken more than 50 hours of work.

Our senior executive team and board are still coming to terms with whether the costs associated with applying for and complying with all of the licences and authorisations are warranted. This is all the harder given our operations are limited to one state, and we anticipate that we are unlikely to generate substantial (if any) fundraising from states where we have no operations.

As a charity registered nationally with the ACNC, in the digital era it is difficult to understand why a simple web page inviting online donations triggers a labyrinth of laws, many of which seem incredibly outdated.”

— Name withheld

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“It has been a nightmare. It was extremely time consuming to research all the different requirements state by state. And after that I then had to prepare all of the various forms for signing and co-signing by either members of our Board or our CEO because each of the states need something different to satisfy the requirements for an application. It is such burden for organisations like ours who are doing our best to help those most in need of help.”

— Name withheld

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“I have advised large companies that fundraise by selling products with logos of charities on them. For these companies and the charities that they are supporting, fundraising laws are an absolute nightmare. Products are often sold around the country, and therefore engage every fundraising jurisidcition. It is often unclear whether the company or the charity, or both, need a licence/approval for the campaign. In my experience the legal fees associated with getting licences in place can be higher than the money raised through the campaign! Of course, lawyers often do this work pro bono – but what a waste of pro bono hours that could be spent doing really meaningful legal work for charities.”

— Name withheld

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“What happens when people love what you do from afar? And then they send you money using your new smart phone optimised, search engine optimised website. And a receipt is issued, and accounts are audited externally, all your information with the ACNC is up to date. All good. Right? Not so. With the advent of social media platforms and news sites, all of which have no state boundaries, our work is seen across borders. We’ve improved how we communicate, we tell compelling stories about our impact to improve our relationship with our donors. But we have to hope they are not outside Victoria or else fill out the paperwork and reporting for all areas. Even if all we made is a very modest sum. The regulatory regime for reporting is still far from streamlined, and most NFPs continue to face a mass of reporting to many different bodies, and for us this includes quality accreditation, risk, audit and acquittals, tax, food safety, poisons, health records, child safety, training and education. We can at least make a uniform approach to fundraising that recognises the real world in which we operate. And lighten our load when a clear solution exists.”

— Name withheld

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“I am the EO for a small not-for-profit organisation which operates nationally as a telephone helpline. I am employed part-time as the sole employee. As our organisation is totally funded by donations we set up a donation portal on Give Now to enable individual donors to easily make donations via credit card (we do not have this facility). In addition the Give Now portal provides receipts and provides a monthly record of donors which is fantastic bonus for a small organisation. However to achieve this we had to apply to be a recognised fundraiser to every state and territory in Australia (except NT).

The requirements for each state were different, some required police checks for our office bearers (WA), others required that we have a postal address in their state (NSW) – we are based in Victoria. To say that the process was labour intensive is an understatement. We now have different reporting requirements for every state and territory – some annual, some every two or three years. In addition we have to notify these authorities whenever committee members change and also obtain police checks for WA. The other issue is that as an organisation working on a very low budget (approx $60,000) we now have have to have our financial records audited annually and again the reporting requirements differ from state to state and so the auditor has to present more than one report. Previously we were exempt from auditing due to our low budget .

It would be ideal if fundraising approval could all be managed by the ACNC rather than on a state by state basis.

Thank you for taking this up. It is a great burden for small organisations.”

— Name withheld

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“As an organisation we are very unclear of what the law is in this respect. We are a not for profit organisation and would benefit greatly from trying to raise some funds from other sources so it would be very beneficial if we could do this.”

— Name withheld

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“Our organisation has two large entities based in Victoria and they carry out some fundraising in some of the other states. To simplify this it was suggested that we apply for a fundraising licence in each state so that the entities are covered if and when fundraising takes place. My experience with setting up these licences has been a nightmare! Every state requires something different eg. police checks WA, signatures and registers of all board members (who are spread across Australia and who may change from year to year). Forms going back and forth between states and gathering and collecting different groups of information as required by each separate state. This process is in need of a well awaited streamlining. There is no way of keeping on top of all the requirements of each state regarding fundraising when you have more than one entity raising money. The applications are tedious and time-consuming and many hours have been spent and wasted on sending and re-sending documents to these offices.

Please please look at merging with ACNC which already has the information required by these fundraising/licence states. It is simply repeating the same process in a different format and wasting every individual’s time.”

— Name withheld

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“We registered to fundraise in each state (over 12 months ago). Still awaiting approval from 2 states …. Long, long process …. ridiculous (really!!!) Each state has a different form which asks various questions with some requiring witnesses and signatures of a JP. The inconsistency of this process across Australia is a red tape and paper trail nightmare which consumes so much time, and, in particular, for small organisations who just want to focus on their charitable work. If a national fundraising system could be established, this would eliminate the frustrations that small organisations (& large) which deflates the soul to have to go through and you begin to lose focus and passion for your initial needs to help others.

That’s why NFPO are established – to help others. Why can’t the government just support what we are doing – we are actually contributing and doing ‘work’ for them in supporting the community.”

— Name withheld

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“Being a national organisation that funds around 450 individual community radio stations, the burden on us for applying in each state and then complying with each state’s differing regulations is both cumbersome and expensive.

I accept that regulations are necessary to ensure that the public is protected from scam fundraisers that give us all a bad reputation, however how many layers deep do we really need to go?”

— Name withheld

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“We recently sought to re-register for 3 years through CAV in Victoria. What a nightmare of red tape . Required all Board members to submit to crim records, required details in including addresses for all members, and they wanted financials for calendar years even tho we are audited against financial years. We we asked why they can’t rely on financials we regularly submit to them (as incorporated body) and to ACNC , to no avail & was pointed out that ACNC is Federal. ACNC should be enough! There were many delays and difficulty reaching a human to talk to.”

— Name withheld

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“We spent over a year and countless hours to register to raise funds for the Australian Hand Difference Register. The AHDR is a joint project with the Royal Children’s Hospital, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Aussie Hands. The process was so frustrating and timeconsuming. We have such limited resources, it is not a good use of our time undertaking this overly complex activity. It takes time away from our core activities – supporting people with a Hand Difference! We want to #FixFundraising too!”

— Name withheld